Infestation
Summer 2018
Matthew Lecroix, the Crooner, passed away in the middle of the night. There was no last song, no fond farewells, nothing but a black bag being whisked away to the funeral home.
Eighty-two of the one hundred forty-five residents living in Bright New Day were infected with the Black Virus. That was a high percentage, since they were all crowded together, but the infection rate across New England was also rising, with new cases reported every few days. Despite all efforts to contain the virus, the Schistlings were spreading their slimy tendrils across the East Coast like a torrential hurricane.
Gabriel stood in the shadows of the communal kitchen, staring at the television. The leopard-printed slug lay on his shoulder.
TOXIC PLAGUE INFECTS 5 MORE IN SPRINGFIELD, MASS
DEATH COUNT RISES TO 24 IN R.I.
WHAT CAUSES THE PLAGUE? RESEARCH IS INCONCLUSIVE
POSSIBLE LINK FOUND BETWEEN NEW EPIDEMIC AND SMALLPOX
Doctors, medical researchers, and scientists of all kinds were scrambling like chickens with their heads cut off, but none of the news implied that the scientific community had recognized the Schistlings’ sentience. The outbreak was still being painted as the spread of a new virus, and a government researcher was quoted as believing that it was probably an evolved strain of the norovirus. Other reports linked it to mad cow disease and bird flu. One family member of a victim had witnessed a Schistling emesis birth, but the story was laughed off as a conspiracy theory.
“Perhaps I can report my findings to one of the official research teams,” Gabriel muttered. “Send them all of my evidence.”
“That won’t be enough, Gabriel,” Leopard Print said. “They won’t believe in the idea of a rogue immune system. And even if someone does listen, your findings will get lost in mountains of paperwork. Years will pass before they look into it, and the Schistlings are moving too fast for that. The human race doesn’t have that much time. Don’t you realize that unless you do something, this Schistling epidemic will continue to spread?”
“There’s nothing I can do on my own. I’m a senior citizen with Alzheimer’s who wanders naked in the hallway. What can I possibly—hey, what’s that?” He jabbed a finger at the screen.
“Toxic waste,” the slug replied. “Or so they say.”
The news had finally switched to a different subject. Evidently, a helicopter pilot had captured blurry cellphone camera footage of a giant maelstrom of toxic waste moving along the coast of New Hampshire. The video showed what looked like an enormous black hole carved deep into the ocean’s blue flesh. The image reminded Gabriel of an oil spill. The experts were clueless as to its cause or what kind of waste it held. They were issuing warnings to potential beachgoers.
“That’s them,” Gabriel said. “Isn’t it? That’s why they always escape to the ocean, to join the crowd, to join their friends. Forming a new society, perhaps?”
The grainy, pixilated footage continued rolling. The black hole spun like a power drill into the ocean’s belly, reaching oily tentacles across the surface. But Gabriel noticed something even more stomach-turning than the toxic pool itself: a face, right in the center of the maelstrom. He rubbed his eyes and looked again; it was still there.
He thought it might be an optical illusion. Pareidolia was the name of the common psychological compulsion to see faces in everything, from a man in the moon to smiley faces in wood grain. But once he’d seen that face—with its contemptuous, leering expression and barracuda mouth—he couldn’t un-see it.
The video switched to footage from a morning press conference. “There’s no reason to panic,” a government official said. “Our top experts are on the case, and they’ve made it clear that there’s no reason to worry. This is simply a unique condition created by local pollution, but it will certainly dissipate within a month at most. We ask that you don’t leave any trash in the ocean, and everyone should be careful on the beach for the next few weeks.”
“Why are they saying that?” Gabriel grumbled.
“You’re not really surprised by a government cover-up, are you?” Leopard Print replied. “I would think that you humans would be used to that by now. Clearly, they have no idea what’s going on, but they must offer some explanation, whether it’s true or not. You know how it is.”
The news flicked back to more stories about the Black Virus. Gabriel held his hand up to his shoulder, and the slug crawled onto his palm, leaving a slimy trail across his hand.
“Why are they all joining together that way?” Gabriel asked. “The Schistlings, I mean. I know you have your noninterference clause and all that, but can you at least tell me that much?”
“Because when they join the pool, they become one, a collective. Every time a new Schistling joins this collective, the mass becomes more intelligent. By merging into one amalgamated consciousness, their united front against humanity becomes that much stronger.”
“So this black pool is some new body that they’re putting together? But for Christ’s sake, if they’re rebelling against the human body, if they’re so keen on fighting for their freedom from it, then why would they surrender themselves to yet another body?”
“Do desires always make sense, Gabriel? Do people always make the right choices and live up to their ideals? What the news won’t tell you is that this toxic waste spill has more than doubled in size since last week.”
“Hell. And in the meantime, they’re still trying to link the Black Virus to the damn flu.” Gabriel shuddered. “So they have no idea what they’re doing, and the only one who does is a senile old fool in a nursing home. Yes, I want to do something, but what? The birth of a poisonous new species isn’t the sort of problem I can solve. Why can’t the next Gabriel Schist step up to bat, already? Why can’t someone like Harry Brenton find a cure? Why did you choose me?”
Gabriel put the slug down on the table and left the room. The more space he put between himself and the slug, the less anxious he felt. The hallway was quieter than normal, but it wasn’t a peaceful silence.
Two nurses—the ex-military nurse on West Wing and a new employee—had gotten sick in the last week and never returned to work. Over half of the residents had become infected, their doors marked by black circles. In the rooms where the occasional doors had accidentally been left open, Gabriel saw emaciated marionettes with black eyes staring up at the ceilings.
As he passed one room, an infected woman let out an ear-shattering shriek. Gabriel peered inside. Her black eyes were bulging from their sockets like eight balls popping out of pool table pockets. One hand with oozing red nubs where her fingers had once been was raised in the air, and her mouth was crimson. On her chest lay a bloody finger with a wedding band hugging its base.
Gabriel hurried past, trying to forget what he’d just seen. The groans from all of the surrounding rooms seemed amplified, ringing through his ears and vibrating his fragile bones.
Edna Foster was sitting in her wheelchair, rolling it back and forth in the hallway. As he veered around her, she reached out and grabbed his hand. Her face was pulled back, taut and miserable, but fortunately uninfected. “Please. I need a ride.”
Not right now, Edna. Gabriel tried to remove his hand.
Despite her shakiness, her grip was surprisingly strong. “Please,” she said. “Give me a ride. Just take me around a bit, will ya?”
Sweat rolled down Gabriel’s forehead. He heard another person screaming. A sick, splattering noise. More beeping. Crashes. Death. “Edna, I can’t right now. Please let go. I can’t—”
“Help me. Please, everything is so terrible. So, so terrible. Please, can you take me for a ride? Just a little ride. Please, I wanna go upstairs and maybe get me some nice hot tea while we’re there.”
Gabriel shook his head. “Edna, not right now. I can’t.” He tried to free his hand again, but Edna wouldn’t let go.
A loud noise came from the room he stood outside of, and he leaned to the side to look in there. An infected resident had fallen out of her bed and was dry heaving on the floor. The black, rope-like veins tore open across her flesh, spewing pus.
He hated to watch, to witness another person dying. He started to turn away but stopped when he realized that the old lady could be his chance to capture a Schistling. He eyed the wastebasket in the corner of the room. He could capture the Schistling in there, trap it in the bag, tie it up, and deliver it to the authorities.
The infected woman vomited, and black tar-like mucus sprayed out across the floor of her room. Another Schistling was being born.
Gabriel desperately tried to yank his hand from Edna’s grasp. “Let go of me, Edna! I need to do something!”
She clenched his hand even tighter. Gabriel heard the squalling cry of the newborn Schistling. He couldn’t reach the trash bag unless she let go. He was running out of time. The infected woman was dead. The Schistling’s wriggling, sperm-like body was rising from the puddle of vomit, its crocodile-like jaws gleefully snapping in the air. The Schistling tilted its head, focusing its beady little eyes on Gabriel.
Gabriel anxiously tried to pull away from Edna’s hand, scared that if he pulled too hard it might snap her frail wrist. The Schistling writhed in the vomit, sucking up the black liquid like a newborn feeding off its mother’s milk. Then, it slithered up the wall and out to the open window, where it proceeded to effortlessly shred the protective screen with its teeth and make its getaway to the ocean.
Gabriel had missed his chance.
“Please…” Edna begged, blissfully ignorant of the scene unfolding in the adjacent room.
“I can’t help you!” Gabriel cried. “I can’t help any of you!” He ripped his hand from Edna’s clutches, which sent Edna’s wheelchair rolling backward.
She scowled. “And I thought you were one of the good ones. Boy, was I wrong.”
Gabriel stepped forward to apologize, but she gave him a look of such sheer hatred that he backed away. He hobbled down the hall as fast as his cane would allow. By the time his room finally came into view, he felt as if his tenuous connection to reality was severed. Is any of this real? The slugs. The Schistlings. Any of it?
He went straight to bed. The sun had barely sunk to the horizon, but Gabriel just wanted to get the day over with. He curled up under the covers and closed his eyes. Sleep. That was all he wanted to do until the end of his miserable life.
